Best large house?

Asardes

Almost a year and a half after Housing was introduced I've finally decided to buy a house. Initially I will only use it to place the storage chests but in the longer run I will also furnish it, though I've not yet set a timetable on that. I've only acquired the 5 free inn rooms thus far, but those don't support collectibles so are pretty useless, bar transfer point. I'm looking to buy one of the large homes, priced between 750K-1.3M, since they have sufficient slots - 8 for collectibles so I can place all chests - but also most of them are not large enough to look overly empty when the furnishing limit is reached, like it happens to some of the manors.

The ones I like most are: Alinor Crest Townhouse, Old Mistveil Manor, Amaya Lake Lodge and Strident Springs Demesne, chiefly for their overall aspect and location. The first two are located in or near towns with efficient writ pathways - I actually base my characters in Riften, and use the public crafting tables there, and the pathway in Alinor also looks pretty efficient, though the character loading time is longer due to more complex assets. The last two have more outdoor real estate and beautiful setting but they are located quite far from main cities. The others from the same category I dismissed initially because I either found the style quite ugly - Stay-Moist Mansion, The Gorinir Estate, Forsaken Stronghold, Coldharbour Surreal Estate - or they seemed to crammed - Gardner House (Wayrest is also very inefficient writ wise, so I could have dismissed it by that reason alone) - or nice but too remote and not having anything special to redeem them - Quondam Indorilia, Dawnshadow, Mathiisen Manor, Hunding's Palatial Hall; everyone seems to have bought the latter but I don't like it since it already slides in that "full but still look empty" part of the spectrum.

So which one do you consider more advantageous in the long run? Did I overlook something? Are there any less obvious advantages in those that I dismissed?

Soella

It is not what you are asking, but if you don't plan to furnish your house right now, I would recommend humble Snugpod - you can put all your chests there, and it is just couple steps away from master writ turn in (not to mention undaunted place). I would choose a large home only when I have an idea how I would decorate it, and base my choice on that.

Nestor

Do you have ESO plus? If so look at Mournoth in Bangkori. It holds all the storage coffers. And a WS is just outside the door and it has a nice area to set up a complete crafting setup

Regarding the writ issue, I park the alts doing writs in Rawkla, and do not involve one of my homes in that process (and i have all the homes)

Asardes

Soella wrote: »

It is not what you are asking, but if you don't plan to furnish your house right now, I would recommend humble Snugpod - you can put all your chests there, and it is just couple steps away from master writ turn in (not to mention undaunted place). I would choose a large home only when I have an idea how I would decorate it, and base my choice on that.

Snugpod can only hold 4 collectibles. It's rather inconvenient to split them, and Elden Root is by far one of the worst places to do writs. That's why I wanted something bigger. Money is not an issue as I have enough to buy the any of the above mentioned houses with about 1-2 week's profit.

Nestor wrote: »

Do you have ESO plus? If so look at Mournoth in Bangkori. It holds all the storage coffers. And a WS is just outside the door and it has a nice area to set up a complete crafting setup

Regarding the writ issue, I park the alts doing writs in Rawkla, and do not involve one of my homes in that process (and i have all the homes)

All large homes can hold 8 collectibles so from that point of view they are identical. The reason why I wanted the house to be in or near a main town is simply the convenience of not having to pass trough multiple transfer points when coming to deposit and take out of them, so I want to minimize that. Most likely I won't develop crafting too much into my own house, since I find it to be unnecessary, considering I'm in at least 2 guilds that have all set crafting stations. Most likely I will only place a few tables for furnishing crafting, which I'll move/store as needed, but nothing too elaborate or permanent.

anadandy

I have Mistveil and I recommend it. It's large, but not so large that it's difficult to make look lived in or require a sherpa to get across the grounds. Mine is currently set up as a tavern/caravan waystation with some private quarters upstairs for the owner. Most of my characters do all their admin in Riften as well.

beebay

Buy the style house you want.
I bought a house to have a neutral starting point with no intention of decorating.
Jump to 8 months later and the house is fully decorated looking cool af with alot of stuff I picked up on the way and crafted what I wanted to fill in the gaps.
My gf asked if I was playing a combat game or becoming an interior decorator...

Sharalei

Since purchasing Alinor Crest Townhouse I've never been happier with a house. Location is pretty good, as the bank, wayshrine, crafting, daily quest givers, and exit to wilderness are close by. I feel as though I live in an active city, and the townhouse itself is to my taste.

There are large rooms to the left and right of the foyer, suitable for comfortable placement of your chests. And, the price is fair. Some of the other houses are overpriced, in my opinion, but the townhouse in comparison felt like a bargain.

So, I can put one vote forward toward the townhouse.

Sharalei

Since purchasing Alinor Crest Townhouse I've never been happier with a house. Location is pretty good, as the bank, wayshrine, crafting, daily quest givers, and exit to wilderness are close by. I feel as though I live in an active city, and the townhouse itself is to my taste.

There are large rooms to the left and right of the foyer, suitable for comfortable placement of your chests. And, the price is fair. Some of the other houses are overpriced, in my opinion, but the townhouse in comparison felt like a bargain.

So, I can put one vote forward toward the townhouse.

Emathides

Sharalei wrote: »

Since purchasing Alinor Crest Townhouse I've never been happier with a house. Location is pretty good, as the bank, wayshrine, crafting, daily quest givers, and exit to wilderness are close by. I feel as though I live in an active city, and the townhouse itself is to my taste.

There are large rooms to the left and right of the foyer, suitable for comfortable placement of your chests. And, the price is fair. Some of the other houses are overpriced, in my opinion, but the townhouse in comparison felt like a bargain.

So, I can put one vote forward toward the townhouse.

I agree with Sharalei - i have the townhouse, love it, and use it as my primary location for doing writs etc.

Asardes

At this point I'm gravitating more towards Alinor house since it has plenty of space: 2 stories with a few rooms, an attic area - that's where I'd put the chests - and a large terrace where I can place other assets such as target dummies and maybe a few basic crafting stations.

I will not try to furnish it exclussively using the speciffic Summerset plans since they are too few and difficult to craft, but more with top tier Altmer furnishings since the styles are close. It is rather time consuming so that phase will take a few months since I have more important tasks to perform.

I have almost reached the financial reserves target so what I'll earn on top of it will be set aside for housing.

Asardes

I've sorted out the storage issue in a different way in the end. Bank clearing trough guild store sales have been more effective than expected - down from 420/480 to 70/480 in 2 weeks - and I've also realized that the free inn rooms can still accommodate 2 coffers each so I've simply placed them there in pairs. I used 4/5 I have by placing a small and large coffer there, for 90 storage space in each, 360 in total. So right now I have 780+ storage spaces available, not including what I still have on permanently inactive characters, which is probably another 250+.

I've found the housing editor rather cumbersome to use, and furnishing itself a pretty big time sink, and I don't have that time currently since I'm working towards other in game goals. I either placed or sold off whatever furnishings I already had and I'm not going to store any additional ones any time soon. So buying a house has been postponed indefinitely, since I don't consider it to have sufficient utility to justify spending gold on it.

Carbonised

I wouldn't choose houses based on location to writs or towns, you still have to go through enough porting and loading screens. Even with all my houses, I still do all my writs in Vivec outskirts, simply because you have all the writ boards, crafting stations, bank, handing in spot and dark brotherhood supplier very close to one another.

As for houses, I prefer the Tel Galen if you have Dunmer or Telvanni themed characters. It's in the largest category, and can fit the largest amount of colelctibles and furnishings, but it's also physically the smallest of the large homes, so you can decorate it fully without it feeling empty.

But that was a limited time, and who knows if it will return. Of the houses on your list, I would pick Amaya lake lodge. It's by far the most beautiful of the homes with a nice garden and outdoors area. The spare room can be anything from a guesthouse to a storage chest area to a crafting area, I use it as a bathhouse myself. The house also has several tiers, so you can have a crafting/storage level, and a personal space/living area level or whatever.
Of all the furniture we have so far, Vvardenfell is by far the most beautiful I think. Alinor stuff is nice too, but very expensive and hard to craft in bulk due to the Culanda requirement, and not everyone has all the recipes as well. Clockwork is very specific and looks out of place outside the CWC home. Vvardenfell furnishings are easy to create if you have the recipes, or somewhat cheap to buy at guild stores.

So even if you have put your real estate purchase on hold, I'd recommend the Amaya lake lodge as a future purchase, it's the most aesthetic choice, easy to decorate, and use for the purpose you intend. And of course I'm heavily biased, but hey.

I have some picture and video showcases of Amaya and the other Dunmer themed houses in my sig if you want to take a look at how it can be done.
Personally, I put my storage containers in the Ebonheart Castle and turned it into a sort of treasure vault, I find that the basement area is excellent for exactly that.

As for the housing tool, well, it could be better, but I find that with a little practise and experience, it works alright. Make sure to turn surface drag off, and use right clicking to align your furniture with the surface instead, then drag your mouse around to do the fine adjustment placement. I found that it pays off to do some decorating on the smaller homes first, maybe start with one of the inn rooms you already own, and use an hour or two to decorate it, then you get a feel of the tool and how to use it efficiently. It also helps to plan out your decorating beforehand, what do you want where in your house, do a sketch in your mind and think about how many pieces of furnishings you want to assign to what room or location. Making a plan beforehand, and choosing the furniture you want in the various places, saves time when you have to do the actual decorating.

Asardes

Besides the storage crates and other account collectibles I had 2 beds, 2 book cases and 1 brazier from the leveling rewards, as well as a string of yarn from one of the quests in Morrowind, a small box that throws some confetti from the Jester's Festival, and 8 volumes of Pelinal's Song from last year's Mayhem, and of 6 precursors. Besides that I've either sold or destroyed every furnishing I've happened to get since most of them looked really silly.

I've managed to somewhat stack the books in a book shelf that I placed in the Rosy Lion, but it took me something like 5 minutes until I found the right position for them. Also it's pretty silly to make book shelves with so little space to put books. Initially I tried to insert them vertically but I realized that they would clip into the shelves so I put them horizontally, 3+3+2 on separate shelves. The whole system is kinda meh so I even those 5 minutes felt like being wasted

Carbonised

Asardes wrote: »

Besides the storage crates and other account collectibles I had 2 beds, 2 book cases and 1 brazier from the leveling rewards, as well as a string of yarn from one of the quests in Morrowind, a small box that throws some confetti from the Jester's Festival, and 8 volumes of Pelinal's Song from last year's Mayhem, and of 6 precursors. Besides that I've either sold or destroyed every furnishing I've happened to get since most of them looked really silly.

I've managed to somewhat stack the books in a book shelf that I placed in the Rosy Lion, but it took me something like 5 minutes until I found the right position for them. Also it's pretty silly to make book shelves with so little space to put books. Initially I tried to insert them vertically but I realized that they would clip into the shelves so I put them horizontally, 3+3+2 on separate shelves. The whole system is kinda meh so I even those 5 minutes felt like being wasted

Haha, Asardes, if you want to decorate a house you have to plan it out and find/craft/buy the furniture you want to see in it. You can't simply throw in the 20 random objects you happen to have at hand and expect it to look good

I suggest you stick with 1 racial theme, for me it's usually Dark Elf (and Vvardenfell, since they are Dunmeri in origin too). If you stick with a racial theme for the character(s) you play, or the racial house you have bought, it will look more coherent.

As for bookcases, yeah, no, don't think of them as bookcases, more like shelves for clutter. ZOS still hasn't implemented books in bookcases in a meaningful way, so you may just forget about using them like that. There's the 2 filled Redguard bookshelves to use instead, or the filled Hlaalu bookcase which looks very neutral. And next update we get the huge Alinor filled bookcase as well.

I have decorated my Velothi Reverie (again in my sig) as a library of sorts. There you can see how you can use the readable books in bookcases or as clutter. In general, loose and readable books are better used as clutter items. Put a single one or two on a short shelf with other clutter items, put one on your nightstand with a small candle on top, or place them on tea tables. I use them like that myself, and I've seen them used like that very well in other people's homes as well.
If you place them individually and try and line up 10 or so on a shelf, you're just asking for a headache. Either buy the book racks for Crowns in the store, or use the premade cluttered bookcases instead.

Asardes

TBH I just threw those spare furnishings in there so they don't take space in the bank so I didn't expect anything spectacular, but I thought that allowing for a conditional stacking "put book in book shelf" type to be something pretty basic that should have been included. I need the extra storage since I have a few hundred master writs and I needed storage for them. I only craft those every few months, since stacking a lot of them allows me to craft in bulk with addons and save a lot of time. I'm on a pretty tight schedule with the upcoming Midyear Mayhem to get back to speed with PvP on 6 different characters, and in the long run I still have 4 more to fully develop, so housing is at the very bottom of my priority list, right there with Master Angler. I do actually have quite a few furnishing blueprints learned on my main crafter, and I will continue to collect more, but more for the sake of it, just as with recipes, and motifs, not to actually craft any of them in the near future.

Carbonised

Asardes wrote: »

TBH I just threw those spare furnishings in there so they don't take space in the bank so I didn't expect anything spectacular, but I thought that allowing for a conditional stacking "put book in book shelf" type to be something pretty basic that should have been included. I need the extra storage since I have a few hundred master writs and I needed storage for them. I only craft those every few months, since stacking a lot of them allows me to craft in bulk with addons and save a lot of time. I'm on a pretty tight schedule with the upcoming Midyear Mayhem to get back to speed with PvP on 6 different characters, and in the long run I still have 4 more to fully develop, so housing is at the very bottom of my priority list, right there with Master Angler. I do actually have quite a few furnishing blueprints learned on my main crafter, and I will continue to collect more, but more for the sake of it, just as with recipes, and motifs, not to actually craft any of them in the near future.

It should have been included, and many of us also have asked that we be able to put books on shelves in a better way for a long time. Maybe eventually, but until then, use the possibilities I outlined above.

Also, if you don't want to place all the readable books in your home, you can put them in your storage chests instead. Or you could make/buy a few of the Alinor display cases and put your books on display in a small inn room. Maybe convert the Rosy Lion room into a Midyear Mayhem celebration room with the Pelinal's books on display, and a few Midyear Mayhem banners around the place.

I hear you, not everyone appreciates housing as much as me other other housing enthusiasts, but give it another go once you feel like it, and good luck with it.

LadyNalcarya

I prefer Strident Springs.
My first big purchase was that Daggerfall castle, but the item limit kinda killed the fun, I ended up either having an empty garden (and water area) or an empty interior.
In Strident Springs, however, I can decorate both. And the waterfall looks great, I decorated that area with a pergola with flowers and wedding lanterns. Also, unlike many other vanilla houses it has actual rooms inside the house, not just a big square space.
Alinor townhouse is great and probably has the most convenient location, but it doesnt have a real garden and for me its a big -.

As for writ locations, I just bought a Snugpod. That thing is next to stables, writ merchant and undaunted enclave, and AD writ merchant actually works regardless of your alliance.

Zells

As someone mentioned, Elden Root is not a great place to do crafting writs, but the Snugpod is an excellent home if you do a lot of masterwrits - wherever you go to do the writ, you can then port to the Snugpod and you're right by Rolis. It also is particularly handy if you do a lot of pledges since it's right by an Undaunted Enclave. Also right by a stable, Outlaw Refuge entrance (but there's a guard in the area!), and a wayshrine.

But the house I get the most use out of is Sleek Creek. I do a lot of thieving, and there's an Outlaws Refuge door like five steps outside Sleek Creek, with no chance of wandering guards seeing you. Leave it to the Khajiit, right? And once you sell your ill-gotten goods, leave via the other exit and you're right by the guild traders and wayshrine in Rawlkha, the city of open crafting tables.